Abstract:
Archaeology is a complex and communal undertaking that brings together
people with varied backgrounds, who mobilize a wide range of tools and expert
knowledge to assemble the archaeological record. In recognizing objects
of interest and characterizing their significance through encoded disciplinary
language (i.e. through data construction and other forms of scholarly communication),
we situate our tacit, local experiences within an archaeological epistemic
culture, or common modes of reasoning. Communication among archaeologists
is therefore considered as a process of enculturation, whereby a shared
understanding of the pragmatic conditions and expectations that underlie a
record’s construction facilitates its continued use by others.
This paper presents the preliminary results from my doctoral research, which
is an attempt to better understand this archaeological epistemic culture, and
to develop information infrastructures that facilitate the interoperability of archaeological
data across research contexts. By observing archaeologists as they
work, which includes affixing GoPro action cameras to their foreheads in order
to obtain first-person perspectives, the physical, cognitive and communicative
processes that comprise common fieldwork practices are formally identified
and related. These observations are integrated with interviews and analysis of
recording practices in order to better understand individuals’ affective roles
within their socio-technical research environments, as well as the communicative
processes (i.e. documentation, representation and mediation) that enable
research to be distributed among archaeologists and across various settings. In
sum, I trace the relationships among archaeologists, their tools, the ideas they
draw from, and the archaeological record itself, as knowledge is constructed
under realistic and social conditions.
Cyclades